


moments

by CiaranthePage



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Episode: s05e01 The Eleventh Hour, F/F, Femslash February, First Kiss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poetry, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-20 22:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 13,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17631059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CiaranthePage/pseuds/CiaranthePage
Summary: a series of moments; moments of emotion, of touch, of laughter and words and shared secrets, of intimacy and reconciliation.(a collection of mini-fics)(table of contents will be added as last chp at the end of the month)





	1. opposites

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this prompt post](http://thegempage.tumblr.com/post/182392685043/femslashfeb-any-world-any-medium-as-long-as) bcus it was the first thing i saw lol  
> hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sharing is caring

Sloane prided herself on keeping a straight face when faced with an adversary. But this, this dinner, was about to break her for the first time.

 

What _was_ that texture?! Had someone threaded the gelatin with _muscle fibers_? Because it tasted an awful lot like someone had threaded desert gelatin with muscle fibers.

 

She “chewed” the bite a few more times, rolling it over in her mouth and trying to look like she hadn’t been eating a bite of gelatin for two minutes. Her throat felt like it was shut and she wondered if she would suffocate before she threw up the food.

 

“Sloane?” Hurley asked, reminding Sloane that she was, in fact, sitting right next to her on a shared seat-pillow.

 

The shock pushed the bite down her throat and Sloane only choked up acid.

 

Sloane covered her mouth and tensed her stomach to stop the shaking. “Yeah, babe?”

 

Hurley studied her face for a few moments, concern wrinkling her brow. She glanced down at Sloane’s picked-at plate, back up to Sloane’s expression, and then to her own half-finished plate. Nobody else in the room noticed them, which was a relief, because Sloane knew exactly what Hurley was doing and Sloane was probably shivering despite herself. She didn’t need a bunch of extended family and coworkers to know that Hurley could interrogate her without saying a word.

 

“You don’t have to eat it,” Hurley murmured, leaning on Sloane.

 

“I-it’s fine,” Sloane said. She picked up her fork and scooped up something that wasn’t the meat, shoving it in her mouth and saying around it, “See? Eating just fine.”

 

“Sloane,” Hurley said, rolling her eyes with a smile. “Gross.”

 

The response made Sloane think it’d been dropped, but before she could finish her bite Hurley had picked up her plate and started rearranging the food between their two plates. When she set Sloane’s plate back in front of her, all traces of the disgusting gelatin and its meat-like cousin were gone; the plate was full of the salad and rice mixtures that Sloane had actually enjoyed. Hurley snuggled up tighter against her side with her own plate in hand; what was left of Hurley’s barely touched portions of salad and rice were gone, replaced with the gelatin (Sloane’s nose wrinkled) and the meat sat on a bed of dark green leaves that Sloane hadn’t bothered to try.

 

She loved Hurley so much.

 

They ate in silence, listening to the surrounding conversation while Sloane managed to eat what she had and Hurley nibbled away at her plate. Hurley seemed content, humming softly between bites and resting her head on Sloane’s chest. “Better?” Hurley asked once most of Sloane’s plate had been cleared in the silence.

 

“Yeah,” Sloane mumbled, leaning down to kiss Hurley’s temple. “Are you sure you’re going to…?”

 

“I don’t mind it, love,” Hurley chuckled. “I like this stuff. Reminds me of home.”

 

Sloane bit back her own revulsion at the mere memory of the gelatin and hummed her agreement. “Works out,” she teased. “Did you not like this stuff?”

 

It was Hurley’s turn to wrinkle her nose. “The sauce is gross,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s…” she shivered, shaking her head. “You seemed to like it, so. Easy trade.”

 

Sloane laughed, loud enough that someone glanced over at them and earned a dismissive “don’t worry about it” wave from Hurley. Sloane took a moment to just smile into her hair, and then returned to her own food. They’d need the energy for their race tonight.


	2. pink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a pink dress and a sunset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note:  
> this is stolen-century era, probably in the early years

“Cute!”

 

Lucretia spun around, the hem of her dress spinning out around her and casting her in a pink glow. Lup stayed where she was leaning in the doorway, grinning ear to twitching ear. “Thank you,” Lucretia managed, smoothing the dress down and returning the grin. “I, um, got a gift from our host.”

 

Lup moved to step inside, striding over to Lucretia when given a head nod. She took Lucretia’s hands and smiled up at her. For a moment, they didn’t say anything, just swayed in the afternoon sun streaming in through the window. Lucretia tried to hone in on the moment, pick up every little detail as if she was going to record this moment.  Perhaps she would, in the little journal she kept stashed under her pillow instead of the blue ones that she’d do… something with, eventually. An eventually she wasn’t thinking about.

 

Lup’s hair was pink, this cycle, but it was a more vibrant pink than the pastel cotton Lucretia had donned. It was not-quite-dry, the way she left it after a shower, tied in a long, loose braid. Her ears were swiveling lazily, performing routine checks. Her hands were warm in Lucretia’s. Lucretia was practically buzzing with happiness. Their nails still matched from their sleepover. Lucretia’s hair was newly combed, the air clean and fresh from Lucretia’s own shower. Lup was dressed casually, almost more casually than Lucretia. Her shorts were loose, knee-length with a faded night sky pattern, and her shirt was clearly her gray nightgown that she’d tied up to allow access to her short’s pockets; the straps of Lucretia’s dress were thin and she feared what would happen around a pair of scissors, patterned with faint, faint butterflies and hanging around her calves. Lucretia hung to every detail, saying nothing. Lup closed her eyes, leaning on Lucretia and saying nothing.

 

Music started up.

 

It came from outside. The evening band, come to play the sun to sleep. Lup cracked open one eye, her tail swishing with curiosity.

 

“Dance with me, Luce,” Lup said.

 

“Outside?” Lucretia offered.

 

Lup laughed, soft and gentle. “Yeah, yeah, let’s do that.”

 

They crept through the halls of the Starblaster, emerging out onto the town square without anyone noticing. There was already the evening crowd, dancing away and singing old songs the crew hadn’t learned yet. Lucretia swept her dress up in her hands, bunching the pink fabric into a curtsey. She offered her hand to Lup, asking to lead the dance.

 

Lup untied her own dress, letting it fall to her knees, and took Lucretia’s hand with a smile to rival the sun.

 

Their movements weren’t as smooth as some of the other dancers around them -- it had been too long since either of them got to dance just for _fun_ \-- but they had fun, twirling and laughing and trying not to get hit with Lup’s long braid. Lucretia had, at first, offered to lead, but there was no real leader in this dance, just as in all the dances around them.

 

The sunset is when all go to sleep, the villagers had told them; the sunset is when all become truly, truly equal. And when, for many, they become truthful.

 

“I love you,” Lup said when Lucretia pulled her close.

 

Lucretia dipped her, taking a moment to stare into her eyes. “I love you, too,” she said.

 

Lup kissed her on the way up.

 

To the surrounding dancers, together they seemed to glow pink, just like the sunset behind them.


	3. lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> being lost isn't all that bad when you're with someone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 might say this was published on the fourth and i'm not gonna change it so it shows up but i finished this at 11:10 pm on the 3rd so it's not late  
> anyway. enjoy!

“We’re lost.”

 

“We’re not lost!”

 

Dani grinned. “Aubrey, if we’re not lost, tell me where we are right now.”

 

Aubrey looked around, trying to figure out what direction Crooked Bend Cave or the arch or even a ranger station was in so she could get her bearings. She wasn’t  _lost_. The Lady Flame didn’t  _get_ lost. She just went on unplanned detours through the woods while trying to show a cute girl a field of flowers she’d found tucked away in a grove.

 

“We’re in the forest,” Aubrey said, sticking her hands in her vest pockets.

 

This time, Dani’s grin became a breakdown of giggles. She covered her mouth with a hand and tried to calm down. “Sorry, sorry,” she managed. “Asked and answered, huh?”

 

Time was, for a moment, slowed; for Aubrey, everything seemed too real to be believable. They were not-really-lost together, alone in a way they didn’t get back at the lodge. The air wasn’t cold, yet. Dani liked her joke and her laugh sounded like the first day of summer and she’d gotten comfortable enough to take off her disguise so her orange eyes caught the late afternoon sun and kept it there. Her hair was hastily tied back, maybe still a little damp from the stream they’d fallen into, but it looked as effortless and soft as ever. She’d tied her flannel around her waist, showing off the kind of arm strength you got from actual hard work. Sunglasses on top of her head, small backpack on her back, and absolute joy on her face. She was beautiful.

 

Her thought processes caught up with real time. Aubrey shrugged, unable to hide her own grin. “You’re cute,” she said and promptly regretted. _Oh, shit, that wasn’t… supposed to be… out loud._

 

That caught Dani’s attention. She looked at Aubrey with stars in her eyes, one corner of her mouth twitching higher than the other as she said, “R-really?”

 

Well, there was nothing to do but own up to it. “Y-yeah,” Aubrey said, running a hand along the shaved part of her hair. “Um, sorry if that was like, weird or --”

 

“No, no!” Dani said, waving her hands. “No. Um, I’m. I’m flattered, Aubrey, thank you.” She looked up at Aubrey and then away, twisting her hands together. “Um, you. You, too. I think you’re cute.”

 

Aubrey didn’t need a mirror to know her own eyes had lit up. She opened her mouth, planning on saying something and finding no phrase suitable to describe the way her heart lit up. She closed her mouth. Finally, she squeaked out a, “Thank you?” Her face was on fire. Hopefully not literally. _Please,_  she thought, _not literally_.

 

They held each other’s eyes for one second, two. Dani smiled. Aubrey smiled. And then they were laughing, and Dani changed the way she was standing and fell on top of Aubrey from where she’d been perched on a log, and Aubrey caught her, and they were on the ground, still laughing, Dani in Aubrey’s arms and their faces close and everything spinning, spinning, spinning.

 

The laughter cooled. Dani was still chuckling; Aubrey was trying to catch her breath from the force of the fall. Their faces were so close.

 

The laughter slowed to a stop. Dani was staring into Aubrey’s eyes; Aubrey was staring into Dani’s eyes; the sounds of the woods picked up and maybe they were lost in the woods but maybe that was okay if they were together.

 

Dani leaned in first. It was spur-of-the-moment, but Aubrey could feel it, feel the impulse run through Dani’s mind before the movement even started, and she met her in the middle, and they were kissing. And they were kissing.

 

They’d find the flower field another time.


	4. cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes, cafes bring out the best in us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: the reference close to the beginning of this, about a snowy-haired writer and a twin barista, is a reference to a yet-unpublished lupcretia coffeeshop au i have!  
> it was a fun easter egg, lol; if you can find the other taz easter egg in here then!! nice : D  
> enjoy!!  
> (and yeah, this is a day late; it's 2 am and i am Tired)

Sloane sipped her mug, staring out the window and watching the crowd go by. She scanned each face that strayed close to the door, looking for the carroty glow that would signal the true beginning to her pleasant afternoon. This shop was nice, calm and perfect for catching up on work or with a friend. And it didn’t hurt that the new baristas that worked the shift Sloane visited were all good conversationalists when they weren’t occupied. And one of the twin baristas had a crush on the snowy-haired writer who always came in around the same time as Sloane, which was, more and more, becoming Sloane’s new favorite thing to people-watch.

 

She wouldn’t get to see it today, unfortunately; the twin baristas were off work. But that was okay because today she’d get to introduce Hurley to her favorite cafe.

 

Hopefully, as a date. Or as something leading to a date.

 

Her mug clinked on the table as she got lost in thought. Sloane still wasn’t sure where they were on the scale anymore. Friends? Dating? Partners? Something in between? They’d kissed, once, and they’d known each other since high school, and they raced together, slept over together, joked (talked?) about living together… but they’d never put a name to it, and Sloane had been stung by assumptions before. She wasn’t keen on losing Hurley over a bad assumption.

 

Something told her she already had her answer. She pushed it aside.

 

Sloane shook her head, starting over her thoughts. This was going to go fine. This wasn’t even about that. This was about showing Hurley her favorite cafe and having a nice afternoon. This wasn’t about answering the questions that kept Sloane up at night.

 

The flash of bright orange and bright white she’d been waiting for pulled Sloane’s attention away from her own thoughts. Hurley waved to the baristas and set about looking around the room, lip poking out the way she did when she was thinking. Sloane stuck her hand up and waved her over; she put on her best “I’m not nervous” smile when she caught Hurley’s attention as she came to the realization that Hurley knew exactly how to dress to get her heart racing.

 

Hurley had just come from training, so her hair was still damp from a shower, shimmering in the sun streaming through the windows; her shirt was clean and white, sleeves rolled up to her shoulders and the hem tucked into her pants to keep it all out of the way, arms bare; her jeans were rolled up just above her ankle and her feet were tucked into somehow stylish flat sandals. And she was just smiling at Sloane like it was no big deal, walking in glowing like an angel.

 

“Hey Sloane,” Hurley greeted, sliding onto the tiny couch right next to Sloane. “Sorry I’m late, I think I ran past here the first time.”

 

Was she even late? Sloane hadn’t been keeping track of time.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Sloane assured her, chuckling. “I…” She glanced down at the table, half-covered by papers she’d been organizing all surrounding her mug. “We should go get drinks.”

 

Hurley looked up from her bag, now set on the floor between her legs, and processed it for a moment before she replied. “Oh, yeah, you said they have great tea, right?”

 

“Yeah!” Not that she’d spent a while combing the options for them or anything.

 

It was, by that point, rather obvious that either Sloane was significantly more nervous about the meeting than Hurley was, or Hurley was significantly better at hiding her nerves. Sloane thought her shaking could be mistaken for an earthquake when Hurley took her hand standing in line; Hurley’s hand was still, an anchor in a wild sea. But, no, except for a softness in her eyes that didn’t seem that different from when she normally looked at her, Hurley didn’t seem to notice Sloane’s anxieties at all.

 

Fuck, they were holding hands, now. Friends held hands, sure. But, as she was beginning to realize, that wasn’t the label Sloane wanted to put on this relationship.

 

She didn’t bring it up. Not at first.

 

First, they had the pleasant afternoon Sloane had promised. Hurley told her about the kids at the dojo, about training, about the walk she’d taken that morning and how the crows were starting to recognize  _her_ now. Sloane responded with stories about the car shop, about her ride, about how she’d picked up a cat and almost taken it home before realizing it belonged to the guy renting the apartment above hers (“you know, the one with the bird name”). They drank, ate, lounged on the tiny couch together, laughed and joked… and then it was happening again, and Hurley was holding Sloane’s hand while she went on her phone, leaning on Sloane’s shoulder, and the question tumbled out in a mess even Sloane almost couldn’t pick apart.

 

“Hurley, are we dating?”

 

Hurley thought about it. She looked up at Sloane. Back down to their hands. And then she smiled and giggled and Sloane’s heart was soaring because she answered, “I thought you’d never ask.”


	5. sharp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a poem about carey fangbattle from her wife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, it's like 12:50 am here, i'm late but in my defense, i had work today  
> anyway!! i wanted to write a poem today and i wanted to try and dip my toes into some more serious team sweet flips so i can write more for them later this month!! hope you enjoy!

Carey Fangbattle is

Sharp

But in the best kind of way.

 

Her fangs are sharp,

Kept clean and healthy.

Her spikes are sharp,

A fashion statement and armor rolled up into one.

Her blades are sharp,

Lovingly tended to and handled with a precision

I’d never seen before,

With strikes that land like the gymnast behind them.

 

Her laugh is sharp

And powerful,

Tearing through the awkwardness,

My original hesitation,

To find the softness underneath.

Her eyes are sharp,

Piercing through poor facades,

Fake smiles,

To let air the grievances so desperately needing relief.

Her footsteps are sharp,

Falling where they need to be,

Only where they need to be,

To bring our mission to success.

 

Carey Fangbattle is

Sharp

But if she weren’t,

She wouldn’t be the woman I married,

Would she?


	6. the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the moon is a clock. the night is young. there are words to share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it's 12:43 am  
> will i ever publish one of these on time? we'll have to find out! the answer is probably not, bcus i'm constantly writing way late at night, but who knows  
> anyway! more danbrey! i almost took the obv route w/ smth lucretia related, but... the moon's pretty important in amnesty too. might expand on this one day in an independant thing, too, idk

The moon was so beautiful.

 

Aubrey stared out the window at the gentle semi-circle in the sky, letting the late winter breeze stir her hair in the hopes of catching a few moments of peace. The moon was nowhere near full, but their battle with the living tree was still close enough to turn the scattered flakes into shadows of memories, flashing in the corners of Aubrey’s vision. Her sunglasses were sitting on the windowsill, one arm clutched in a trembling hand. She wouldn’t cry, she told herself, but the shaking was out of her control.

 

There was a knock on her door. Aubrey tensed, nearly snapping the arm of her sunglasses in her hand. “Come in,” she called, slipping them back on. The lights were still on; she couldn’t risk her visitor seeing her e--

 

“Hey, Aubrey,” Dani said, rubbing one eye with a smile. “I, uh…” The door shut behind her.

 

Aubrey turned around, sinking further into her bed. She managed a weak smile at Dani, despite the fact that it felt like her sunglasses were burning her face. Dani’s smile faded a little and her eyebrows wrinkled. “Are… are you okay?” Dani asked, sliding onto the bed across from Aubrey. “You’re… still wearing your sunglasses.”

 

“O-oh, am I?” Aubrey said, rubbing her neck. “They mess with the light, I must’ve. Forgotten.”

 

She slid off the bed and stood. Despite the confusion boring into her back, Aubrey turned off the lights before she took off the sunglasses, and she walked back to the bed with them still clutched in her hand. She set them on her bedside table, ducking under the moonlight to lie down, lying with her knees bent and feet on the bed so Dani still had room. Dani couldn’t see. Dani couldn’t see what she’d done.

 

Dani didn’t seem to want to see. She stared out the window, just as Aubrey had been doing, and took deep breaths. Aubrey wanted to ask what was wrong. She wasn’t sure how. But, maybe… she took Dani’s hand, squeezed it. Maybe it was just --

 

“Aubrey, what is it like?”

 

“What?”

 

Dani pushed back some hair that’d escaped from her ponytail with her free hand. “What’s it like, to fight monsters? Whenever you go out I. I can’t help but wonder, you know?”

 

She wasn’t looking down at Aubrey; her eyes were still focused on the moon.

 

“Intense,” Aubrey said without a second thought. “There’s a lot going on and there’s not a lot of room for mistakes and…”

 

She trailed off, her free arm draping itself across her eyes as if she was afraid Dani would see them. “And you… you do what you have to do.”

 

Silence.

 

“Sorry, that was bad.”

 

“No, no,” Dani assured her, squeezing her hand. “I’m just thinking. The monsters, the battles, they seem so far away from here. But they’re not, and…” She sighed. “And the moon still stays the same, even though everything keeps changing.”

 

Aubrey peeked out from under her arm. Dani was looking out the window, her breathing slow and steady, cloaked in moonlight. Their hands were intertwined; the last coat of nail polish Aubrey had put on a few days before the fight was almost chipped away, and Dani’s still had some dirt under them, and it seemed so natural to see them together. Carefully, Aubrey shifted to keep her orange eye away from Dani and sat up next to her. She leaned against Dani, unable to find any words to continue the conversation. Dani leaned on Aubrey’s shoulder, closing her eyes. Aubrey watched the moon until she fell asleep, sitting in the sky, its eternal clock ticking away until the next hour of need.

 

They lied down together when the wind got too cold, in the glow of the moonlight. With Dani, the moon was only beautiful.


	7. disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they feel like they've had this conversation before, but disaster is ever-present, so does it matter?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished this at 11:58 pm on day seven, i'm considering this a win  
> yes it's hurloane again; they're just. their relationship is so fun to write for, y'all  
> also, i'm gonna be adding a table of contents once this whole thing is published at the end of the month so! yay, i think?  
> enjoy!

Sloane looks down at Hurley’s hands, covered in red scratches and poorly bandaged cuts, darkening bruises scattered across her knuckles. Hurley’s face is not much better off; there is something forming on her cheek that easily could have been a black eye, and her lip has only scabbed over within the hour. “Hurley…” she sighs, choking on the word. “What did you  _do_? You look like a disaster.”

 

Hurley smiles and winces in a single motion. “It happens,” she says. Sloane takes it for an answer.

 

 

Hurley cradles Sloane’s head in her lap, long since choked out of her tears, twirling Sloane’s hair in her fingers. Sloane says nothing. The bags under her eyes are dark and the tear tracts in the dust are still visible; she hadn’t been able to drag herself to the bathroom to take a shower. She clutches Hurley’s hand and her own heart and stares at the ceiling. She is so tired. Hurley knows. “Sloane,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Disaster averted.”

 

Sloane’s breath shakes. “I know.” Hurley hopes she means it.

 

 

The battlewagon lies in a crumpled heap. Hurley is still limping, one leg bloodied in the crash. Sloane’s arm is tied to her side, keeping the bones in place until they could get help. They are both glad it wasn’t the good wagon that they’d taken out for a test ride. Hurley slumps into Sloane; Sloane curls over her. They share a moment, share the air. There must be a silver lining somewhere, somewhere. Hurley finds it. “That could’ve been a disaster,” she breathes. “But… we’re safe.”

 

The nod is barely perceptible, but Sloane’s whisper is clear as day. “I hope.”

 

 

Papers are scattered across the desk and Hurley has her head in her hands. Sloane doesn’t want to believe what she sees. The disappearances are increasing. No one knows why. Villages attacked, securities broken. Children gone and their names stolen. It hurts to think about for too long. It hurts to think about anything for too long, Sloane thinks. She can’t seem to hold onto thoughts these days. “It’s not a disaster yet,” she tries to comfort Hurley. “I’m sure you can…”

 

A sniffle. “Not yet.” The words in Hurley’s mouth feel like icicles against her skin.

 

 

Their room is empty and Hurley feels like her heart has been thrown into the street. She doesn’t bother with the bed, not anymore. She lies on the ground under the window, the last place she saw Sloane, and cries. She doesn’t want to cry. She doesn’t feel like she’s earned crying. But she cries. _This_ , she thinks, through the tears. _This a disaster_.

 

Someone outside the window does not breathe to speak. The wind steals their “It is.”

 

 

Her hands are bleeding and Sloane realizes it’s too late. She is towering above the city, everything she could have wanted within reach. She doesn’t want any of it. She doesn’t want the bodies collapsed and barely breathing against the wall, not the riches, not what she has in her veins. She does not want it and does not think about it. Her moment of clarity is left to one thought. _She thinks I’m a disaster_. She runs the thought over and over in her mind. _She thinks I’m a disaster. I think she’s right_.

 

Someone calls her name, screamed into the wind. “You’re not --” and Sloane is gone.

 

 

She is pushing the gas pedal before she can think, and Hurley launches them into the sky. She is screaming, screaming, screaming for a joy she hadn’t known in so long. Her heart aches. Her heart aches from the stress and the thought that the love of her life is gone and the drive to take her back. She will make them win. She will succeed. She has new friends by her side to help, even if their tactics seemed primed for disaster.

 

She discards the thought. “I’m coming,” she whispers, a prayer to a god who has yet to listen.

 

 

They find themselves entangled in each other. Sloane feels like she should have laughed at the pun. She does not. Hurley does. Hurley is laughing, and it is weak and it is making Sloane want to vomit. Sloane is crying, and it is silent and it is hidden under a powerful plea. It is too late for them, Sloane thinks, but she has always been one for justice. And justice, now, was making sure that this disaster would never befall another.

 

Sloane asks Hurley a question. “Of course,” is the deepest relief Sloane has ever felt.

 

 

They wake up. Hurley smiles. Sloane smiles. The sun is shining. The sky is clear. There is no more disaster on the horizon.

 

“I love you.” Two times over.


	8. silent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a night of silence can say so much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....ladies, is it gay to want a girl to take you out into a field and play with your hair?  
> you know, i feel like i should just write day 28 now so i can get at least _that_ one up on time

The air was still. Neither spoke. The fireflies danced outside the tent, the world outside humming with insect calls. They were the last two awake.

 

Lup’s tail swished back and forth as she watched Lucretia write. Lucretia hadn’t looked up from her notebook in a while. Probably recording the day’s events; they were only on day one, but their post “we got the Light!” camping trip was already eventful. A big breakfast, the hike, swimming in the rivers, almost getting attacked by a bear… Lup had to muffle a laugh at the memory of their water-gun fight. She didn’t feel like dealing with a woken-up-too-early Taako, who was sleeping a few feet away, or a disoriented Magnus, sprawled out across the floor in a starfish pose.

 

Her muscles ached. Lup shifted away toward the door of the tent to stretch her back. Lucretia’s pen stopped scratching paper. Lup opened her eye and met Lucretia’s. Lucretia was watching her, a tiny, tired smile on her face. Lup grinned, muffling another laugh. Lucretia set her notebook and pen aside and shifted to sit next to Lup. They both stretched, but instead of going back to her spot, Lucretia stood and opened the door to the tent, motioning for Lup to follow her out. Lup was on her feet before the thought even fully registered in her mind, and they stepped out into the field they’d pitched their tent in.

 

They didn’t go far from the tent. Lucretia sat down just far enough that if she laid down, there would still be a handful of feet between her and the tent. Lup laid down in the grass next to her, watching the fireflies drift around. It occurred to them both, almost simultaneously, that outside the tent they could talk.

 

The silence was too peaceful, they decided.

 

So, instead, Lucretia moved a little and swept Lup’s hair out from under her. Lup set her head in Lucretia’s lap. Lucretia started to braid it, weaving the pastel orange waves into two sections. Lup made light shows as she waited, trying to guess the patterns of the fireflies around them. The wind whistled in the grass; the insect calls seemed so far away; the world was silent, and in the silence was a calm they so rarely knew.

 

Lucretia finished the braids and smiled down at Lup. The moon behind her made her look like she had a halo. Lup smiled at her. They kissed, soft and sweet like the grass, and Lup sat up to settle against Lucretia. Lucretia wrapped her arms around Lup; Lup took her hands and gave them fluttering kisses, heart jumping whenever Lucretia’s breath hitched with a silent giggle.

 

The stars were so beautiful.

 

Lup could hear the stories sitting in Lucretia’s chest as if she were telling them all over again. The story of each constellation, shining in the sky, guided by a star map that for once, for once, almost matched the one they’d brought from home. On paper, they hadn’t made as much sense, but now, seeing them in the sky, Lup could understand where someone would see two intertwined lovers in the sky, someone would see a lion and a hero trapped in an eternal dance, see a duck and a weeping god and a witch of the elements and a man stuck between animal and mortal and a thief in his treasure hoard. Against her back, she felt Lucretia take a deep breath and wondered which constellations she was looking at.

 

She’d ask in the morning. She didn’t want to ruin this, not now.

 

They sat until Lucretia began to shiver. The sun hadn’t quite made its morning appearance, but Lup guessed it wasn’t far off. Lucretia squeezed her hand, trying to communicate, and Lup led them both inside and to the blanket pile where everyone had curled up. They wiggled into a spot in the middle, wrapped around each other, foreheads together, and slept in silence until morning.


	9. lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the last color in the rainbow, the last one in the box, and the last color dani would have expected to give her confidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love them  
> @ the mcelroys: please make this canon  
> "opal," you may ask, upon reading the opening paragraphs, "how is this related to the prompt?"  
> "you'll see," i say, fully aware of my flaws

Watching people from afar took up a lot of Dani’s time.

 

She never felt comfortable just walking into town and talking to people, preferring to leave that to other residents of the lodge; after the Hornets incident with Jake, she’d lost most of her original desire to do so. People were also easier to draw far away when they mingled into crowds and backgrounds. Charcoal and soft pastels were not the  _best_ medium for fine details, not when you constantly open and close your sketchbook, so she finished more drawings than she abandoned if she kept far away from the crowds. A record, since in Sylvain --

 

Her thoughts usually stopped there.

 

It wasn’t that she didn’t have  _anything_ else to do. But gardening could only be dragged out for so long, as could exercising, walks, sitting in the hot springs, sleeping… So, people- and animal-watching took up a lot of her free time. Especially if she could do it without leaving the lodge. Like that afternoon.

 

The Pine Guard had planned a brief meeting, but Barclay was out, so they sat in the lobby to wait. Dani wasn’t paying too much attention to their conversation, one earbud in playing a podcast and her hands dusting across her charcoal pad, trying to capture a middle-moment of Aubrey’s hand movements and Ned’s constant shifting and Duck’s apparent inability to stay in one spot. Jake was at a table nearby, pulled to be a bit closer so he could participate while working on his board; Jake’s disguise wavering when he got emotional and nearly knocked his goggles off of his head didn’t help her drawing much, either. But she’d remained unnoticed for this long, and it was finally, finally starting to come together.

 

She’d put Duck in a chair, hat off and showing off his strange blue roots; Ned was about to fall _off_ a chair, as if he was ready to bolt; Jake had his hands on his board, tensed to say something; Aubrey… Aubrey was animated, laughing and motioning as if she was going to summon fire, her hair trailing into flames at the tip. Dani stared at the drawing for a moment. No, she’d done that. She’d made Aubrey’s hair into fire, which Aubrey had told her before was something she thought about a lot.

 

Whoops.

 

Dani coughed to no one and reached into her art bag for her colored pastels. Aubrey had been encouraging her to use more colors in her art, since even though her charcoal drawings were “beautiful already, it can’t hurt to brighten up the world a little, right?” (with a wink at the end, because of her last name). A great idea, until she looked into the bag in her hand and realize all she had was a lavender pastel stick.

 

Damnit. They must’ve fallen out.

 

She put the pastel stick to paper with a deep breath, hoping she wouldn’t mess up the lines. She told herself it’d be alright and started to color Aubrey in. If she drowned out everything else except for her podcast and the drawing, she could do this.

 

_“Smell good?” “Smells great. Posh interior, soft seats, uh, un, shag carpeting, which is weird, but it’s like nice shag carpeting.” “Right.” “Uh, so you walk in through the main passenger entrance, into the passenger car, and there waiting for you is a, uh, very tall, very finely-dressed, elven man, uh --”_

 

“Oh, Dani!”

 

Dani jolted and nearly dropped her pastel stick on the ground. She looked up, locking eyes with Aubrey, who was waving at her. Dani waved back with the hand covered in charcoal and pastel, using the other to turn off the podcast. Aubrey got up, said something unintelligible to the others, and walked over to her, hands in her pockets. “I didn’t see you back here! I, um, wanted to say hi earlier, but I had to run.”

 

She chuckled the way she did when she was covering her nerves and sat next to Dani, continuing with, “So. Hi!”

 

“Hey, Aubrey,” Dani said, giggling. “Sorry for earlier, I guess? I’ve been drawing all day.”

 

Aubrey’s eyes became stars. “Can I see?”

 

To anyone else, Dani would’ve hesitated. She should’ve hesitated, considering the glow she’d put around Aubrey while coloring, but she flipped the sketchpad around and took a second too long to start saying, “It’s not done yet, but y’all were --”

 

“Wow,” Aubrey breathed.

 

Dani stopped, her cheeks flushing; Aubrey looked up at her, smile bright, and said, “Dani, this is amazing! You made us look _way_ cooler than we are.”

 

“T-thanks,” Dani said, brushing her hair behind her ears. _She_ could just about catch on fire right now. Normally she wasn’t the one who had to worry about that.

 

Aubrey opened her mouth, closed it, and handed the sketchpad back, saying, “But, it’s not finished, right? I’ll let you, um, do that.”

 

“Wait.”

 

The word was out before Dani entirely comprehended it. Aubrey tilted her head a little, waiting. Clutching the lavender pastel like a lifeline, Dani had an idea, ran with it, and asked, “Do… do you have to leave now?”

 

“Um, no, probably not.”

 

“Can I draw you?”

 

Aubrey looked like Dani had handed her the sun.

 

Dani drew her just as bright.


	10. waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sloane said, "i want to show you something  
> but it'll be kind of a wait."  
> anything was worth the wait with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> high school aaaauuuussss  
> i love high school aus where hurley + sloane were best friends in high school, and i especially love quiet pining in high school situations  
> hope you enjoy! i've been,,, floored by how kind your comments are, i love all y'all

On a normal night, Hurley would’ve been in bed by now. Not lying in the grass waiting for the starts to look _just_ right, not getting one of her white tank tops stained with green and brown, not breathing in and out with the world and feeling her heartbeat match with the universe’s, not turning and smiling because her best friend intertwined their hands and they both just _knew_. This was not a normal night. Hurley didn’t want it to be a normal night.

 

Sloane slid closer, shifting her grip on Hurley’s hand. Hurley looked back up at the stars. She wanted to take in every moment of this, every moment of connection with the world and the stars and the girl next to her. If she could scrawl this feeling across her skin in ink, she would’ve done it in an instance. Being an impatient person, she never would’ve thought of this on her own, but apparently waiting  _could_ be nice.

 

“Soon,” Sloane whispered. She was so, so much closer.

 

Hurley couldn’t think of a reply. It got lost in her throat and in the one-two step her heart took out of place. Sloane didn’t seem to mind. Hurley tried her best not to bring attention to it.

 

Of course, neither of them were truly patient, even with a goal in mind. Sticking one hand in the air, Sloane began to trace shapes in the stars, swishing from point to point, describing not the constellations Hurley had up on her ceiling and in her school notebooks but constellations Sloane had made just for them. No longer did heroes of old rule the skies armed with centuries of renown; no, now it was high schoolers with active imaginations and stories to preserve. The stars over Hurley’s house weren’t a trio of heroes fighting all of nihilism anymore; they were their three classmates who’d gotten roped into helping Hurley win a big race and done surprisingly well. The Lonely Journal Keeper, the shyest library assistant, the one with white hair and a shining smile. The Cherry Tree was the tree out back of Sloane’s house, still a cherry tree, but holding them instead of two immortal lovers. Sloane made new constellations, too; cars she’d owned, stories she’d liked that hadn’t made it up to the stars, the Raven and the Ram, the former perched on the latter’s back in a display of strength.

 

Hurley loved listening to her talk. So much that she almost missed Sloane interrupting herself and hissing, “Look!”

 

Oh, it was worth the wait.

 

The sky was at its zenith, every star coming together to fan out around a brilliant full moon, the clouds pushed away by summer winds, her house far enough out that light pollution didn’t matter. Hurley felt herself stop breathing as the universe held its breath, waiting, waiting for this moment to end itself. _No rush_ , said the universe.

 

Hurley felt Sloane’s fingers tighten in hers, their breaths held in unison. _No rush_ , said Hurley.

 

Whether it lasted for a few moments or a few years was something Hurley was never able to say for sure.

 

But it did end, slipping out of place so little that Hurley wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise. The universe breathed in, and Hurley breathed out with a giggle.

 

“Great, right?” Sloane asked. She lifted their intertwined hands, holding them toward the stars.

 

She looked over at Hurley, their eyes meeting. Hurley didn’t think her smile get any bigger, and yet… “Beautiful,” she breathed, laughing. Beautiful. The girl or the sky? Her heart didn’t tell her.

 

“Beautiful,” Sloane echoed. Her voice was drowning in love. For her or for the sky? Hurley’s heart didn’t dare to guess.

 

They waited. One, two, three breaths. Sloane turned toward Hurley, brushing her hair away from her face. “We should… probably get back inside,” she said.

 

 _No_ , Hurley thought. “Yeah,” she said, chuckling. “We both need to change.”

 

They didn’t move. Hurley stared at Sloane; Sloane stared at Hurley.

 

Their lips only brushed.

 

Hurley could wait for the rest.


	11. rest day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two in bed together; it's time to rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for a prompt called rest day, this sure was, and i kid you not, the hardest one to write so far  
> why? i don't know. the words just. Didn't. this was originally gonna be karaoke based but then i couldn't find a song i liked and things just went downhill from there  
> and then i got this, which is a fun experiment to contrast against silent so. yay? what time period is this? i don't know! fill in the blanks as u wish

“Luce.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t think I want to get up.”

A hum. “You don’t have to.”

“What if I don’t want _you_ to get up, either?” The shuffling of blankets, a kiss on the cheek.

A laugh. “Well, I don’t see why I’d want to.” A book shutting, a returned kiss. “You’re the perfect space heater.”

“Well! I’m hurt, Lucretia. I never would’ve guessed you were so shallow.” A cold-hands-on-warm-skin squeak.

“I wouldn’t call it shallow, Lup. More of an appreciated bonus.”

“Prove it.” The purr of a happy elf.

Laughing. “Prove _what_?”

“Prove that you love me for more than my hotness.”

“Lup!” More laughing, two laughs.

“C’mon, Luce! I’ll go second.”

The shuffling of blankets and clothes, a deep breath. A stretch of silence.

A long kiss. Twin breaths. Chuckling. “How about that?”

“You know how to make a girl blush, huh babe?”

Fingers in hair, twirling long locks. “I had a good teacher.”

“I’d love to meet _her_ , then.”

“Lup, I think you’re _already_ in love with her.”

Settling, sitting, resting together. “A fair point.”

Deep breaths. The lights dim.

Hands move, rubbing out knots hidden under shoulder blades and back muscles.

Deep sighs of relief. Bodies tucking into laps.

Hands still, holding tight.

Someone falls asleep.

Time to rest.


	12. balloons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> someone has to blow up the balloons. make it two someones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna be real with you -- i don't like the ending of this one as much, and i might come back for it. but it's 1:40 am, i like the beginning, and my thumb is starting to cramp in a worrying way, so this! is what i have for now

“Balloons?”

 

Jake nodded, smiling. “For New Years!” he explained. “We decorate the lobby and try to brighten it up since a lot of folks can’t see the main events.”

 

Aubrey took the bag of balloons, suppressing the urge to shake her head at the all-too-familiar smell emanating from it. She hadn’t worked a birthday party in  _how_ long, and yet… She managed to smile back at Jake, asking, “Oh, okay, cool, how many do you want?”

 

“I dunno, however many you feel like making,” Jake said. “You might even be able to rope someone -- oh, hey, Dani!”

 

Dani turned and looked at them. She was coming in from the back, the stains on the knees of her overalls and gloves hanging out of her pocket leading Aubrey to guess the garden. Her hair was tied back in a bun, her eyebrows raised in question, and she almost seemed like she’d been thinking of something else entirely. “Hey, Jake,” she greeted, waving. “And hey Aubrey!”

 

“Hi, Dani!” Aubrey said, almost dropping the bag of balloons as she waved back.

 

“C’mere, we’re doing New Years stuff,” Jake called, motioning her over. “I got Aubrey on balloon duty, can you help her out?”

 

For a moment, Dani looked confused, but looking between Jake’s not-that-subtle-clever grin, the massive bag of balloons, and Aubrey’s nervous smile, she made a connection and stuck her hands deep in her pockets with a, “Sure! I’d love to.”

 

“Cool, I’ll see y’all later!” Jake was off down the hall with a salute, and Aubrey was almost surprised that he didn’t leave a Jake-shaped cloud of dust in his wake.

 

“How does he _do_ that?” Aubrey asked (not for the first time).

 

Dani (not for the first time) shrugged.

 

They picked one of the coffee table and couch combos hidden away from the dining area to settle down and start preparing New Year’s decorations. With an empty garden tub between them, they blew up balloons one by one, only occasionally with magic. Silence ruled the first few minutes of their work, but Aubrey wasn’t one for awkward silences.

 

“What were you doing, out in the garden?” she asked.

 

Dani’s smile made Aubrey’s heart melt a little. “Well, mostly getting ready for the spring,” she began. “But today I was checking on the vegetables I planted and --”

 

Aubrey didn’t understand all of what Dani talked about, but listening to her get more and more enthusiastic, waving her hands and trying to inject explanations when Aubrey looked confused, still had her grinning ear to ear. She was starting to understand  _more_ since she asked every time she saw Dani come in from the garden, but gardening -- as she’d recently learned -- was not a _simple_ skill. It was almost as complicated as some of the magic stuff Janelle had been teaching her. And still, Dani knew  _so much_.

 

“And what about you?” Dani added once she'd caught her breath, a half-blown balloon losing the air it’d been holding onto when she motioned at Aubrey. “I didn’t get a chance to see you this morning.”

 

“Well…” Aubrey laughed, tying off the balloon in her hands. “You know, when I’m not out monster hunting, I’m not the most exciting person.”

 

“I find that hard to believe.”

 

“It’s true! I just took a walk, I didn’t even go find Duck or Ned or anything.”

 

Dani chuckled. She shifted closer to Aubrey, leaning on her shoulder. “That’s still something,” she insisted. “Tell me about your walk. Did Dr. Harris Bonkers get to go?”

 

Aubrey shifted her arm so that Dani could cuddle closer, still holding the balloons she was filling. “Oh, well of course!” she gasped in mock-surprise. “I think he likes the nature walks more than I do. We just --”

 

And Aubrey began to talk, weaving a tale of her walk through the woods that morning and early afternoon. The sun’s late-winter warmth, the way everything seemed so much louder, Dr. Harris Bonkers in his appropriately-sized sweater. Even without looking or making eye contact, she could feel Dani’s appreciation for her word-pictures, and she kept going, adding in details she hardly remembered dressed up to the nines to keep her smiling and giggling and snorting.

 

They finished the tub and more before Aubrey finished her story, but neither of them moved from their spot, staying wrapped in each other against the winter air pushing against the walls, surrounded by balloons. Switching back and forth, they traded stories and anecdotes until Jake popped his head over the couch and said, “Want to come help set up?”

 

Aubrey shrugged; Dani agreed. They could continue their conversation while setting up. So they got up, hands intertwined, and began.


	13. the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sloane has her own little sunrise every morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is super gay, i hope you like it as much as i liked writing it, and while normally i'd be mad that i'm getting this out at nearly 3 am on day 14, this particular day 14 is valentine's day, so it works out anyway

Sloane woke up to the rising sun wrapped in her arms each morning. Always awake before her yet still tucked against her chest, pretending to sleep for a few more minutes of peace together. Casting warmth across the room, across the desert outside, across Sloane’s heart. Glowing orange and freckled with red and holding Sloane like a lifeline. And each morning Sloane gave her rising sun a kiss on the top of her head and a kiss on the lips and they would stay, stay, stay for another moment, hanging onto the horizon, before rising to start the day.

 

The sun in the sky could never compare to the one sharing their apartment, Sloane thought each morning. Her rising sun smiled and laughed when Sloane told bad mid-morning jokes and fire back her own, her grin amused to devious; her rising sun sat and ate with her, halfway between pajamas and clothes with her hair damp and glittering -- Sloane always finished breakfast too early, she teased, but they both knew it was on purpose -- as they talked dreams and held hands across the table; her rising sun would take her by the hands before she left to brighten up the world and pull her down for a kiss goodbye, leaving the taste of an “I love you” on Sloane’s lips without saying the words.

 

The sun in the sky was too hot, too impersonal; it baked the sand and the buildings and the people beneath it with no regard for their own feelings. It burnt skin and attitudes, left them scarred and rough around the edges. The sun in the sky didn’t laugh at her jokes. To the sun in the sky, Sloane was the joke. The sun in the sky was held up by the people in the towers, and the people in the towers did not seek to brighten the world. No, they only brightened their own.

 

She did what she could, of course, but at the end of each evening she remembered her rising sun and went home.

 

In the evening, when the sun in the sky was setting, her rising sun was still bright. Always home first, finishing up a meal so they could eat together. Glowing with the day’s joys and ready to hear all of Sloane’s, ready to free her sorrows and to free all of Sloane’s so they both could find peace again. Shining orange and dotted with ruby freckles, the only treasure Sloane ever needed. And each evening, once they’d finished eating, Sloane would give her a kiss on the cheek and a kiss on the lips and they would go somewhere together, the city, their garden, the poetry collection her rising sun loved so dearly, their room, their garage.

 

“Sloane?” Hurley called, reaching out to catch Sloane’s attention. “Hey, look at me.”

 

Sloane blinked, shaking her head. “You were spacing out,” Hurley teased, leaning on the hood of their wagon. “With that look.”

 

“What look?”

 

“The one that makes me want to kiss you.”

 

Sloane laughed. Looking at Hurley, bathed in the lights of the garage, glowing like the sun, she said, “Well, what are you waiting for?”


	14. white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a poem. sometimes snow is flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was... originally going to be much longer, and also not hurloane again, but i'm kind of sleepy and i like this poem so  
> i hope you do too <3  
> (i was originally gonna do lupcretia, but day 15 is umbrellas, and i want to save lupcretia for umbrellas; also, i was listening to Handmade Heaven)

A beat

On a drum,

Of a heart,

In her ears.

 

Petals fall

From the trees,

Out of hair,

To the ground.

 

Snowy petals

In their hair,

On their hands,

Above their heads.

 

There is no true winter here,

And yet it snows,

Snows petals of white and pink.

 

She says her vows.

She promises her everything,

She promises her more,

She promises her all she can give.

 

She says her vows.

She promises her love,

She promises her support,

She promises her all she has.

 

A cheer,

From the crowd,

In the branches,

Shakes the petals.

 

She kisses her.

She kisses her.

 

A winter wedding, they said.

A place far away, they said.

“I’ll take you to see the snow,” she said.

“I’d love to see it,” she replied.

 

It is not snow,

But it is white,

And it is falling,

And they have waited.

This will be good enough.


	15. umbrellas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when one hears "i have a gift for you," usually the thing you're handed is the gift itself, but not this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me going into this: oh, umbrellas, like the umbra staff!  
> what happened instead: i think this might be victorian era au?? i don't know but they're in pretty dresses in a meadow

The curved handle was in her hands before she could think twice about what she’d said, and they were off. Lucretia tightened her fingers in Lup’s, a laugh echoing between them and the handle of the umbrella bumping against her shoulders. The rain chattered against her umbrella, which she now could realize was a starry white, and she let the relief of no longer getting rained on overpower the squelch of mud under her feet. The hem of her dress was likely ruined -- not-technically-green-mud didn’t look good on any color, nevermind blue -- but that was fine; she’d been meaning to scrap it for fabric anyway.

 

Lup’s umbrella was a halo of pink against the dark gray of the clouds, framing her an angel. She ran backward, still pulling Lucretia along, the hem of her white dress flapping in the wind around her knees. There was mud up her shins, which didn’t surprise Lucretia, who’d had a suspicion Lup had ran to her house when the rain started. She was smiling, laughing. Her hair starting to come undone, strands threatening to wrap themselves around her face. She almost tripped over a rock and Lucretia started reaching out to catch her and she just  _didn’t_ and Lucretia’s heart was pounding in her ears.

 

“Where are we going?” Lucretia called, straining to be louder than the rain.

 

“Trust me!” Lup replied, turning to face forward.

 

She did. Gods, she did.

 

Their footsteps wove a path through the meadow, the rain getting stronger, getting under her umbrella and soaking the shawl she’d managed to throw on. It was starting to dawn on her where they might be going, but for what Lucretia couldn’t puzzle out. The thing was run down and --

 

Lucretia nearly collided with Lup when they crested the hill and the gazebo was… well, it certainly wasn’t the one Lucretia had visited the month before. She pressed against Lup, overlapping their umbrellas and seeking support in the grip of their hands. The gazebo Lucretia had seen that day was half fallen down, crumbling under its own age and poor nail placement. No paint to speak of and only three-quarters of a floor. Somewhere she might’ve liked to visit in its heyday, she’d mentioned.

 

What was in its place was not any of that.

 

It was more spacious than the previous, painted white with rose bush and fruit free patterns, raised enough to have a little staircase leading to its floor. Each pillar stood tall, straight, and proud, bearing a complete roof and supporting the railing. The trees around it looked as if they’d been there for centuries -- though she could’ve sworn they were there the previous time -- and kept the inside dry and almost warm-looking. It was smooth and effortless looking as if the gods had simply willed it into completion.

 

“Magnus, Taako, and I have been putting it together,” Lup explained. “You looked sad that we couldn’t get in, so…”

 

She shrugged one shoulder, letting her next words get lost in the sound of the rain against their umbrellas. Lucretia looked over at her, mouth open slightly in awe. Lup managed to look proud of herself at the same time she was glancing shyly at the ground, kicking mud. Her umbrella cast its glow across her skin, making her look like she was blushing (or, Lucretia dared to hope, maybe she was).

 

“Thank you.” The words slid out of Lucretia’s mouth, blocking the words that came to mind first.

 

A laugh and their fingers tightening in each other’s grip. Lup brushed damp hair behind her ear, looking up at Lucretia. “Want to go inside?” she offered.

 

“Of course,” Lucretia said. “But, wait, Lup.”

 

Lup had nearly let go of her hand, but she looked back at Lucretia with her eyebrows raised slightly. Lucretia closed her umbrella, hanging it as best as she could off of her belt, and took Lup’s face in her hands, hesitating there for a breath. Lup’s umbrella only barely made it onto the gazebo before she closed the gap, her hands on Lucretia’s shoulders. The rain poured down, down, down, soaking their hair and dresses and every regret they could’ve had, washing away the grit and grime. It was wet and a little cold, but Lucretia’s chest felt like it was red with flame.

 

The breath they took after separating was split between them, and Lup exhaled her piece with, “We should probably get out of the rain.”

 

“Y-yes,” Lucretia said.

 

They stood for a few seconds longer. And then they took shelter in the gazebo, stretched out across the stone, and they tried the kiss again, and again, and again, umbrellas left at the front steps and hesitancy in the rain water’s runoff.


	16. blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> logically, aubrey should be red. but not quite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry, this is super late!! but i sat down last night to write and i felt like i was gonna pass out so i just kinda,,, sludged through social media and went to bed  
> day 17 is gonna be up,,, eventually. it's 3:38 am as of writing this note and i feel like i should be going to bed soon

Aubrey wore her vest  _everywhere_.

 

It’d been a habit for years, to throw on her pin and patch-covered denim vest before she left, but now that it’d been enchanted, no one saw her anywhere without it. Jake joked once, while trying to stay calm during a hunt, that she hung it up near her bed instead of the closet. He didn’t laugh when Dani said he wasn’t far off.

 

The logical thing, Dani thought, would be to associate Aubrey with warm colors -- reds and oranges and yellows, the color of fire and the color of most of her hair. The color of her stage lipstick and her nails after she had a day to herself. But the vest, the vest always stuck in the back of her mind, blue denim with shimmering reds and rainbows made of pins and patches, the cool of denim back from a walk in the woods, blues and whites and grays. The color of the sky, of a lake, of the hot springs.

 

Aubrey broke the color patterns Dani had always known and made blue warm.

 

She’d taken for granted the places colors went, the temperatures they held, the places in the world and in symbolism. Blue was comforting, like the sky, and it was deep, like the ocean. Blue was sad and blue was content. Blue was calm unless it was paired with the deep green of violent waves. Aubrey was comforting, but not like the blues of a clear summer sky; Aubrey was a blanket tucked around your shoulders, a guard between your hot cocoa and your pajamas on a winter evening. Aubrey was passionate and Aubrey was constantly moving, constantly improving. Aubrey was a fireplace, showing off every color imaginable when given the right situation. The intelligence, the loyalty, the trustworthiness -- Aubrey was all of them, but she was no calculating schemer, she was a problem solver who loved her friends too much to give up.

 

Aubrey’s hair was based with a blue Dani hadn’t noticed at first.

 

She joked about it, explained the heat physics behind the colors of flames, admitted she just thought it’d looked good at the base against the dark roots. She couldn’t make blue fire, not yet, she didn’t really want to, but she carried it high, like a badge of honor. Once, she told Dani, across a private dinner, staring at her plate. Once, she’d made blue flames. She didn’t remember why or how, anymore.

 

Aubrey made Dani see blue everywhere.

 

In the colors of her own closet, in the flowers in the garden, in the way the clouds made licking flames, in the depths of the sunrise. Something in the back of her mind would whisper, perhaps not entirely coherently, about the girl with the flames in her hands and the denim vest on her shoulders.

 

In the post-birthday lipstick marks on Dani’s cheeks.


	17. damned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hurley has a work dinner, sloane has words of encouragement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this could've been angst, or even hurt/comfort (tho day 18 might be better for that), but i didn't want to do a sad thing, bcus i am already sad, so instead have some flirting and hurley definitely wrinkling a suit, if i'm remembering how suits work right.

“You look damned good in that, Hurls.”

 

The words are a purr in her ear, a whisper of breath that makes her heart skip a beat. Sloane is on the bed behind her; Hurley can see her grin in the mirror. The twitch of Sloane’s ears betrays the nature of the purr and Hurley can’t help but feel flattered.

 

She turns, kneeling on the bed so she can properly kiss Sloane and take the whisper to heart. Something in her head insists that she’ll wrinkle the suit, but it doesn’t matter. It’s only a short kiss (well, what passes for “a short kiss” between them, these days), and Sloane’s hands are in her hair and on her cheeks, not pulling her closer by her waist and tying them together.

 

“I wish you could come,” Hurley muses, taking a moment to just lean on Sloane. “These dinners are just… ugh. The kids are great, but their _parents_.”

 

Sloane laughs, draping an arm around Hurley. “Next one, okay?” she promises. The laptop in her lap slips off onto the bed as if to emphasize her point. “By the time this rolls around again I’ll’ve graduated.”

 

Hurley huffs. It’s an answer she knows, an answer she heard when she’d been dragged to a friend’s formal event, an answer she didn’t want to hear. But it’s the only answer she’d been expecting to get. “I know,” she sighs. She settles into Sloane; she doesn’t have to leave right away, why not take some time to charge?

 

They shift, Sloane setting her laptop aside and Hurley lying against her chest, their hands intertwined and set against Hurley’s stomach. There’s silence. Hurley closes her eyes, listens to the sound of Sloane’s steady heartbeat and her own breathing and the late-afternoon starting to turn to evening.

 

“Do you really think it looks that nice?” Hurley whispers, breaking the silence with a whisper.

 

The purr starts up in Sloane’s chest, again, low and comforting. “Mhm,” she hums. She breaks her hands away from Hurleys, slides them around her stomach to wrap her in a hug. “You always look nice in a suit, Hurley, you know that.”

 

“But you did the  _thing_ ,” Hurley insists, leaning back despite herself, setting her hands on the bed. “With your ears.”

 

“This is the first custom tailored suit I’ve seen you in,” Sloane jokes. She kisses Hurley’s temple, her cheek, where her neck meets her jaw. “Of course you’re going to look better than usual.”

 

“And the thing?”

 

“Later.” And Sloane’s voice drops, almost inaudible next to Hurley’s ear. “You spent too much time on your hair, I can’t mess it up this time.”

 

Hurley’s cheeks flush, just enough pink to earn a squeeze and another kiss on the side of her lips. “I appreciate the concern,” she jokes, twisting so she can get her fingers into Sloane’s hair, teasing it outward and combing a knot with them. “Later, then.”

 

She doesn’t want it to be later, now that she’s said it aloud, summoned the feeling in her heart and her fingers and Sloane’s eyes. But perhaps later would be nice; perhaps later would massage away the knots and pent up energy from being around such a large crowd.

 

“You have to go eventually, you know,” Sloane jokes as if her heart is not racing. “I’ll comb my hair, you go pretend to know how public speaking works.”

 

“Okay, okay.” So Hurley stands, and Hurley steals one last kiss, and on her way out the door she hears a low whistle and a “damned good silhouette, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: "the thing" is a subconscious twitch sloane does when she's thinking Thoughts that i didn't want to add so it wouldn't ruin the rating; it's basically a "c'mere babe" signal to hurley, by this point


	18. safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aubrey takes a breather. dani helps her brave the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, yes, i _am_ two days late  
> but that's only one step off from usual, so... enjoy!

The snow was falling, and this time it was  _really_ snow, down setting at her feet without a sound. Aubrey stared up at the sky, hands buried deep in her coat pockets. Something nagged at her, insisting that it could all go wrong in an instant, that there could be a second abomination off schedule, that the snow was going to turn back into cottonwood seeds and it would turn out that their entire battle was for nothing, that her eventual conversation with Mama about The Crystal Incident was going to go wrong and Mama would get upset again, telling Aubrey that she’d set things into motion she couldn’t control. Aubrey’s breath hitched, threatening to spill over; she swallowed the feeling, forcing it away. She didn’t have the energy to deal with a cloud that thick. The anxiety was already making her hands shake in her pockets.

 

Footsteps crunched the thin layer of snow, but Aubrey didn’t move, her eyes glued to the movement of the clouds in the winter winds. “Hey,” a voice whispered.

 

Aubrey looked over, her shoulders melting when she realized it was Dani bundled in a thick coat and a scarf. “Are you cold?” she asked, a little louder. “You’ve been out here for a while, and… it’s getting late.”

 

Despite her words, Dani didn’t seem particularly inclined to move. Aubrey let out a shuddering breath and watched it drift away, willing it to take her anxieties with it. They made eye contact; Aubrey sunk deeper into her own scarf, trying to hide the parts of her face not already covered by her sunglasses and beanie. Dani reached out one hand and became the steadiest thing in the world. Aubrey took her hand. Their fingers slotted together, and Aubrey wasn’t shaking as much. Aubrey looked back up at the sky. Dani followed her gaze, sliding across the snow to stand next to her, find the same patch of sky that had Aubrey so entranced.

 

“It’s over,” Aubrey managed. She wasn’t sure if it was true, but it sounded nice. “It’s snowing.”

 

Dani squeezed her hand, set her head on Aubrey’s shoulder.

 

“It’s snowing,” Aubrey repeated. She’d seen snow in Kepler before, and the tree had only been around for… days? Weeks? Time slipped through her grasp. And it’d still left her overwhelmed with an unnamable feeling at seeing real snow fall.

 

“It’s nice,” Dani said. “We should go try skiing again.”

 

Aubrey managed to chuckle at the memory. “Yeah, I think…” She left the thought hanging in the air, letting Dani fill in the blanks. She didn’t feel like talking.

 

Dani hummed. She closed her eyes, settling against Aubrey. Aubrey couldn’t close her eyes, but she looked down to Earth again, straight ahead into the woods and back toward the lodge and down at Dani on her shoulder. She dug around in her mind, trying to find the word for the emotion bubbling in her chest and flooding her with relief; it was familiar, but not too familiar, as if it’d grown distant in the last few --

 

Safe. She felt safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will i ever stop referencing the mbmbam theme tune? absolutely not


	19. vanilla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's lucretia's birthday; lup starts it off with something sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, the rating is still gen, this is a family-friendly fic collection!  
> and also, sorry if the ending is weird, it's 2 am and i can't quite keep my eyes open, so i'm trying my best,,, i might end up just waiting to catch up until this weekend, we'll see

The smell of vanilla flooded the kitchen, dancing in the air as Lup danced through the kitchen, transporting pots and bottles to the beat of the songs playing through her speaker. Vanilla coffee, vanilla frosting, vanilla cookies, the leftovers from the vanilla candle she’d lit before getting started. Not  _everything_ was vanilla; the chocolate cookies were finishing up, but their scent was kept calm in the warmth of the oven by Lup’s impeccable sense of timing, and the chocolate icing didn’t have much of a smell to it among everything else.

 

Each ingredient she put back seemed to be singing along, adding taps and beats to the music and to Lup’s footsteps. She mumbled the words, ears perked and listening for any sound coming from the bedroom that could hide under the music. She wanted to surprise Lucretia in bed, but if her last birthday (and her last cold) had taught Lup anything it was that there wasn’t a force in the universe that could keep Lucretia in bed when she wanted to get up. She could only hope that, if Lucretia did decide to get up early, the notes Lup had left around her room would be a good enough distraction.

 

And that she liked them in general. Lup had probably spent too long on the notes.

 

Lup took a swig of vanilla coffee and had her hand in an oven mitt before the oven timer could think about going off; she stopped it with a second to spare, counted out the second, and pulled the chocolate cookies out to cool down. Everything was almost ready… except for Lup, who hadn’t bothered to change when she rolled out of bed.

 

Shit.

 

She finished preparing the small decorating station -- cookies for the first course of breakfast was cheating, but it was Lucretia’s birthday, so it was fine -- and slid down the halls back to their room. Bothering with changing out of pajamas was usually rather low on her list of morning priorities, but this was special.

 

Lucretia was awake but didn’t see Lup come in, busy reading one of the notes Lup had stuck on the wall. Her original plan abandoned, Lup took a deep breath, prepped a quick prestidigitation, and sang, “Happy birthday, Luce!”

 

The fireworks were tiny and, as per house rules, harmless, but they still it up the room in a two-second rainbow, catching Lucretia’s attention. She turned to see Lup and smiled, laugh bubbling up from her throat. “Good morning, Lup,” she said, meeting Lup at the foot of their bed.

 

“Good morning to you too,” Lup said, wrapping her arms around Lucretia’s waist. “Guess what?”

 

“What?” Lucretia replied, her eyes half-lidded, arms around Lup’s neck.

 

Lup shifted her grip, picking Lucretia up and giving her a half-turn, making both of them laugh. “You’ll have to see!” she said between giggles.

 

Lucretia caught a kiss when Lup set her down. She pretended to lean her weight into Lup, teasing, “Are you _sure_ you can’t just tell me?”

 

Lup snorted. “Hey, I put a lot of work into this, the least you can do is humor me.”

 

She led Lucretia out to the kitchen, showing off the cookies and icing spreads with wide arms. “I’ve got… better plans for dinner,” Lup admitted. “But hey, who can say no to customizable cookies?”

 

Lucretia took each of Lup’s outstretched hands and pulled them in, giving her another kiss. “Especially homemade,” she joked. “Lup, I could smell what you were doing from our room.”

 

“Still good, right?”

 

“An understatement.”

 

“Then what are you waiting for? Grab a knife, let’s decorate these suckers.”


	20. hate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sloane has a thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you thought this was going to be angsty? maybe even hurt-comfort? some wicked-esque pining?  
> nah  
> this is also short, which i wasn't expecting? but i kind of like it

The early evening was full of buzz: the buzz of insects lying down for the night, of people going home after long days, of kitchen activity and children playing and thoughts running wild. Especially thoughts, here, thoughts of all kinds, of love and longing and --

 

“You know what I hate?”

 

The words stalled the sound of the knife on wood and spoon on metal. Hurley turned to look at Sloane, her eyebrows confused but a grin pulling at the sides of her lips. “What?” she asked, her attention going back to the soup.

 

Sloane huffed, ears twitching. “Dust.”

 

Hurley snorted. “Babe, you live in Goldcliff.”

 

“And I hate how dusty it is!” Sloane gestured to the window with her knife. “I know we’ve got the enchantments on the windows, but  _racing_. That’s. Ugh.”

 

“We could get enchantments for the wagon.”

 

The sounds of cutting stopped again. “Come again?”

 

“It wouldn’t be _easy_.” Hurley shrugged, gesturing with her spoon. “We’d have to adapt a window spell unless you’re hiding high-level magic powers from me. But we could.”

 

A shiver ran down Sloane’s spine, some hint of a premonition, but she disregarded it. This was too good of an idea to pass up; the dust had started getting into her more dramatic pair of boots and any solution was a good solution. “...how big are the windows on the new wagon?”

 

Hurley’s lips curled into an “I had a good idea” grin, one Sloane felt in her heart instead of saw, and replied, “Not sure. Perhaps we could check… after dinner?”

 

Sloane looked down at the mostly-chopped vegetables she’d been preparing and laughed. “Point taken,” she teased. “After dinner.”

 

“After dinner.”


	21. wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the divine in the moon doesn't give wings to just anyone, something lucretia knows deeply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bet you weren't expecting a sudden reference to my currently-banished-to-limbo-series _[And So The Silver Sands Call](https://archiveofourown.org/series/920538)_!  
> well, here it is! that series might actually come back one day but. not anytime soon lol

“Lucretia.”

 

The word leaves her mouth like a prayer. Lucretia covers her face with her hands, the wings on her back flapping gently, nervously twitching. She is still smiling; Lup can see her smile, hiding inside her hands. She takes Lucretia’s hands, pulls them away, flashes Lucretia her own smile. “They’re _beautiful_.”

 

Lucretia feels the sincerity as much as Lup’s hands in hers. Her wings, unusual for a moon spirit, had always been a sore spot, but Lup is looking at her as if  _she_ is the moon. They are the sunset tied to her back, a presence more than fleshy feathers, hidden from the public eye with careful spellcasting, graceful and arching and  _tall_. Lucretia was already tall, she’d never understood why Moon would give her the wings of an Ascended instead of the small, night-sky wings of the other moon spirits. But with Lup staring at her, enchanted, glowing, she understands.

 

“And so are you,” Lucretia says; some part of her does not want the compliment, still, but she refuses to reject it.

 

Lup laughs; Lucretia’s wings shudder again when she joins. Their eyes meet, and Lup reads her face, thinks, tries to gauge what Lucretia is thinking. Lucretia is thinking so much. So much. The thoughts of an immortal are so hard to decipher. Lup picks out a thought, and Lucretia can tell which one it is by the grin on her face. “Can we go flying?” she asks.

 

A sound that is not feathers ruffles. “I’m… not sure,” Lucretia begins, “I’ve never flown anyone --”

 

“Oh, no, you don’t have to carry me,” Lup says, shaking her head. “Watch.”

 

And she takes a step back, letting go of Lucretia. She spreads her arms, palms to the early morning sky, and closes her eyes to breathe. A fire starts, one in each palm, and Lucretia is forced to suppress her urge to move when the fire spreads down her arms, up her shoulders, down her back. Lup looks unfazed. Lup is unhurt. Lup sprouts the wings of a phoenix as the fire retreats from her arms and she smiles and the fire changes colors and Lucretia is more in love than she previously knew she could be.

 

“Cool, right?”

 

“Cool… may be an understatement.”

 

Lup’s smile turns into a grin and Lucretia knows she has made a mistake. “You’re right,” she says, sticking her hands in her pockets. “They’re _hot_.”

 

Lucretia felt a laugh bubble on her tongue, eager to join its family in the air of the morning, but she decided to do something else. So she put her hands on Lup’s cheeks and kissed her, resting their faces together and listening to Lup chuckle at her own joke.

 

“Let’s go flying,” Lup suggests again, nearly against Lucretia’s lips. “Please?”

 

Lup’s hands draped around her waist; they are swaying, swaying. Lucretia flaps her wings, thinks, feels the gentle warmth of Lup’s wings and Lup’s heartbeat against her soul. Her fingers trail through Lup’s long hair, untouched by the fire. “Yes,” she breathes, despite not letting go. “Let’s go… somewhere.”

 

“The moon,” Lup jokes.

 

“Somewhere closer,” Lucretia replies, giggling. “Next time, the moon.”


	22. shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> killian and carey go grocery shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all i conquered my fear and also several failed writing attempts to finally bring you some team sweet flips! i've been afraid to do these girls justice : ( but hopefully this does!! i'm looking to add in some different ships as the month rounds out to a close, so expect some special guests next chapter ; )  
> this is a modern au; carey and killian have been dating for a while, but just recently got the money together to start renting an apartment

Carey crept up behind Killian as she waited in front of the store, waiting for her to put her phone away. She really, really wanted this surprise to go well, and not end with someone’s phone on the concrete (rest in pieces, Magnus’s junk phone). Once her phone was secure, Carey did a short hop, called out, “Killian!” and prepared to either duck and roll or land on Killian’s back. It was, as usual, the latter; Killian caught her like a dance partner: smooth, purposeful, and with enough redirected momentum to swing her around and give Carey a proper hug and kiss.

 

“Hey, Carey,” Killian said, trying not to laugh. “I was starting to wonder where you were.”

 

“I wanted to surprise you,” Carey said. “It’s the first time I’ve gotten to see you since Candlenights, how can I _not_ jump into your arms?”

 

She gave Killian another kiss before pushing off to jump down, landing with her hands in her pockets and a grin on her face. “You have a point,” Killian said with a half-shrug, eyes sparkling. “But I we do need groceries if we’re going to be moving our stuff into the apartment soon.”

 

The words still sent shivers down Carey’s spine, enough that she almost missed Killian calling her to head inside. They were moving in together. They had an apartment already, Carey had slept there right before Candlenights, their power was working, some of their furniture was already inside, they’d picked a date for a housewarming party so they could have some sort of deadline. Carey loved her family, sure, but she loved Killian just as much, and she’d already lived with them her whole life; the fact that the first place she was moving out of her house for was a decent apartment with her girlfriend (soon-to-be-more, if things went well) was a miracle she’d desperately needed.

 

“You know,” Killian remarked as they passed the furniture section crowded with seats and boxes and at least one awkward couple disappearing behind the shelves. “We struck coincidental friend gold. Mom always told me furniture shopping was the worst part of moving.”

 

“Great bragging rights, too. ‘My entire living room is handmade’ isn’t, you know, a common claim.”

 

“Not a common true one, anyway.”

 

They kept going. As they walked place to place, it occurred to Carey that she’d never _really_ gone shopping with Killian; they’d been _to_ places before and shopped for gifts and one time wandered the same store they were in now while drunk and in search of frosted animal crackers with Magnus, Killian, and Avi, but never… regular grocery shopping. It was nice. Killian was a bit more methodical with shopping than Carey was. Carey had a tendency to put off her shopping until it was torn into bite-sized chunks; she never put aside a day to get everything, just grabbed stuff as she needed it from the closest store that had it. Killian had had a day and time to  _invite_ her, and she had a list on her phone that she’d showed Carey before. Updated regularly, she’d come to realize.

 

Living together was going to make a lot more than Carey’s general life better. She was now determined to steal and learn Killian’s shopping habits, now.

 

It was a mutual learning curve, of course, which Carey became increasingly proud of as they meandered Killian’s practiced grocery shopping path. Carey, notoriously picky and indecisive, had picked up an old family habit of planning meals in advance. Killian, at first, was skeptic, but they’d agreed to try in the rush of moving, and it’d streamlined the grocery process to a needle and cooking duties to perfection.

 

“Hey, babe,” Killian asked. “What was for dinner tonight?”

 

Carey looked down at her hand, where she’d scribbled the next few days out of habit. “Steak,” she said, resisting not for the first time the urge to stand up on the front of the car to look for ingredients faster.

 

(Carey also, much to her delight, had infected Killian with her favorite shopping habit: “One impulse buy per shopper.” And a love of frosted animal cookies.)

 

They glided through the store, talking in calm tones that were increasingly full of suppressed excitement about that night, about the next night, about the night after that, about their future together. Carey rubbed the receipt in her pocket between her fingers the entire time they were in line to pay, staring up at Killian, hoping her second surprise would be just as good.


	23. gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> even goddesses exchange gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> our special guests are..... _drum roll sounds_..... The Raven Queen and Istus!  
> they might make another appearance later this month, but i'm not sure yet, i'll have to look at the prompts i have left

“Well, aren’t you beautiful?”

 

Istus spotted The Raven Queen in her not-really-a-mirror and laughed. She slid the half-finished black and galaxy shawl off of her shoulders and set it with her yarn and needles in their pocket in space. “It’s for you,” she replied.

 

“I didn’t mean the shawl.”

 

The Raven Queen was leaning on the not-really-a-doorway, her presence shining with metals and feathers, branching antlers dripping with gold and fabric. Istus drifted over to her, past her, into the bedroom, onto the bed. “What brings you here, love?” she asked.

 

There was no movement, just a whisper, but The Raven Queen’s response was loud, clear, and right next to her. “Am I not allowed to visit?”

 

Istus lied down on her bed, the eternal locs of her hair spreading out into space. “You are, you are, but I was hoping my intentional ignorance was for something exciting.”

 

The Raven Queen’s laugh was the metal and feathers adorning her form and shrouding her face colliding together. “Foresight even for that you don’t know,” she said. “Indeed, my deer, indeed. I have something special for you.”

 

Gods were not good with physical objects, but the necklace The Raven Queen pulled from among her jewelry was no longer physical, robbed of the things that once made it solid and left with only the golden, glittering beauty of a craftsman's love for their work. The long chains were woven gold, infinitely small threads intertwined again and again until they formed a larger chain supporting a single charm -- a feather, as much as Istus could guess, gold layered over thin stone. Istus had never seen anything like it. She cooed in admiration, watching it glitter in the light. “Sit up, I’ll put it on you,” The Raven Queen said, her voice full of smile.

 

Istus sat up, shifting her hair aside with a thought so that The Raven Queen could drape the chain around her neck. She felt her love’s face rest against her back, content and quiet, hidden by her dress instead of the cloak adorning her form. The charm was heavy and light in her hand, weighed with love and spun of light. “May I ask where you found such a gift?” Istus teased.

 

The Raven Queen’s movement to twirl her arms around Istus sounded with a chime of shifting jewelry. “A follower,” she hummed. “Burying a loved one. Made her a protective amulet to bring as payment for safe passage.”

 

“They’ve moved on from coins, then.”

 

“The craftsmen among them have; coins are easiest for those without the time.”

 

The Raven Queen stayed snuggled against her back, resting with their essences almost mixing. Neither of them wanted to move, even if Istus was sure The Raven Queen had duties to attend to. Istus’s knitting bag appeared beside her, needles right where she needed them to be. Knitting didn’t require full-body movements, and The Raven Queen’s gift spurred on her desire to finish her own gift. So she began to knit.

 

If gods could sleep, The Raven Queen was near asleep on her back, the natural beats of her essence like slow breaths. Istus felt as though she could sleep, but the needles in her hand kept her awake and steady. Perhaps she would go back in and add thin golden thread, she thought. She was sure to have an old sewing kit somewhere in her memories. She could stitch feathers between the stars and her love’s ancient name around the planets. That would look nice.

 

They stayed together for a span of time, resting and listening and simply  _existing_ in a way gods so rarely got to do. Istus began to wrap up the shawl, tying together the ends of a feather. The Raven Queen had migrated to Istus’s lap, her face uncloaked as she lied against her love.

 

The prayer that interrupted the peace was a voice all too familiar to Istus. She laughed like the knitting needles in her hand and brushed some of The Raven Queen’s hair and feathers away. “You should listen,” she cooed. “Your son is calling.”

 

“Is he, now?” The Raven Queen mused. She sat up, lying against Istus’s chest instead, opening the realm to hear the prayer of her favorite reaper, Kravitz.

 

“My Lady, there seems to be a... development regarding the town of Refuge,” Kravitz said, voice echoing even into Istus’s mind. He seemed nervous, which was unusual.

 

“What sort of development?”

 

“Those three bounties I waived, back in the lab, they.” Kravitz stopped and took a deep breath, composing himself. “They’re involved, now. Their names have shown back up.”

 

The Raven Queen looked to Istus. _Those three are yours, now_ , she asked with her eyes.

 

 _Tell him not to worry. I’ll handle it_ , Istus replied.

 

“Stand by for further instructions,” The Raven Queen said. “We can’t do much out here.”

 

“I’ll continue with my other mission, my Lady.”

 

“Perfect. Thank you, Kravitz.”

 

The prayer went quiet. Istus smiled; The Raven Queen emanated amused. “You didn’t want to leave,” Istus said.

 

“Partly.”

 

“You’ll have to go back eventually.”

 

“So will you.”

 

“...let me finish the shawl for you.”

  
“Alright.”


	24. blessed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dani reflects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hi sorry i died for a bit but i'm back and i'm gonna finish this series if it kills me all over again  
> for real, i'm really sorry i dropped the ball, life suddenly sucker-punched me and i didn't have the energy i needed to put in the effort this work deserves. but i should be okay either from now on or in a window big enough to finish this!! and hopefully this chp didn't come out too rough  
> actually related to the chp: this is actually set in my [silver sands au](https://archiveofourown.org/series/920538) \-- aubrey is a mage from "our" world and dani is a faerie who lives in the magic-mortal world

The divines had never had much bearing on Dani’s life. Faeries didn’t usually engage with them, not the way the mortal races did; she knew they existed, knew they’d made time and that some of the other groves celebrated Magic for her gifts to their ancient queens. But she was born on the edge of time, in its shallows where everything was slower and steadier, and as far as she knew no divine had ever visited the realm where she was born. And no divines meant no blessings from divines, which she heard a lot about from friends who'd gone to visit the mainland for long periods of time.

 

She met Aubrey.

 

Aubrey was a blessing.

 

Aubrey’s old home across the Divide felt as far away as Dani’s in the faerie groves. She was bright, in the sense of her smile and the sense of the low glow that lived in her hair and her heart. She’d lived with magic in its most parasitic form all on her own for years and learned to harness its power for her own goals. She made Dani laugh and had a rabbit on a leash that she was teaching magic and she did magic shows in the lobby of their new home to entertain everyone and keep her skills sharp. She gave tight, genuine hugs and listened intently and even when she couldn't find the right words to express it Dani never doubted that she cared.

 

Dani didn’t call her presence a blessing, of course; Aubrey knew less about the divines of the world than she did, and the way Aubrey had described the blessings and wills of the divines of the world beyond the Divide (“gods,” she called them) didn’t line up with how Dani felt when they were together.

 

That was fine, though. Dani hadn’t had enough practice with those kinds of words before she had to leave her old home. She could tell Aubrey in other ways. Like giving her paintings and watching Dr. Harris Bonkers and cuddling up with her the couch in the lodge and lying on a blanket under the moon, watching the glow of Aubrey’s magic rise and fall with her breaths. Watching the glow rise and fall with her breaths, glowing just a little brighter when Dani smiled. When they kissed. When Aubrey laughed.

 

Aubrey was a blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> hey, it's the part of the fic where i talk to you, the reader!  
> i hope you enjoyed and will continue to enjoy as the month goes on (or as you finish reading, if you're seeing this post-february)!! have a fantastic [time appropriate word]!  
> if you want to come chat with me about taz or wlw media or whatever it is you want to chat about, come find me on my tumblr, [thegempage](http://thegempage.tumblr.com/) or on my twitter, [@achillopal](https://twitter.com/achillopal)!


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